


Until All The Songs Are Sung

by flandersmare



Series: Figrid February 2016 [1]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Balls/Gatherings, Day 1, Fígrid February, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-01
Updated: 2016-02-01
Packaged: 2018-05-17 17:35:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5879698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flandersmare/pseuds/flandersmare
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>‘Go not out into the cold, where the wind and snow are blowing, for the fire is flaming gold and in here the music’s flowing.’ - Nil Se'n La</p><p>Or</p><p>Why can't I write anything but exposition?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Until All The Songs Are Sung

**Author's Note:**

  * For [inheritanceofgeek](https://archiveofourown.org/users/inheritanceofgeek/gifts), [MagicMarker](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagicMarker/gifts).



In the fullness of time, this night would become known as the Ball of the Beggars. 

It would become quite a curiosity in the annals of Men, Elves and Dwarves of the Eastern territories. An evening of celebration that twinkled on the pages, not like any jewel or gem, but like a glowing ember in an ashy hearth, nestled among the grey and cinders of that first winter in the Rhovanion Valley after the Mountain had been reclaimed. It was an ember that would smoulder and warm the cold months before and aft, and spring, like fresh kindle, would see the fire in Durin’s people renewed.

No ball had ever been held in such a place before or since. It will never be know what Thrór, First King Under The Mountain, would have said had he seen the sight. The vaulted market place of Erebor, that saw so much of the Kingdom’s wealth, not just its’ gold but also its’ people and their craft, was a mottled sprawling shanty town. Those who survived the flames and the blades and the snow, they were there now. The children of Men, seeking refuge in the Mountain. The wide and level region of Erebor’s lower levels looked from above like a well-worn patchwork blanket, little tents and bundles carefully marking out private havens. King Under The Mountain, Thorin II, known as Oakenshield, had ordered for the doors of his kingdom to be opened in the wake of the autumn of 2941 of the Third Age. Reports say that he gave the order from between blooded lips, the severity of battle wounds holding both he and his heirs to ransom. Since that day, men and dwarves had worked shoulder to shoulder, clearing the main gates, securing the mountain and doing what could be done in the face of the on-coming winter. 

That winter would come, and with it a chill that laid the whole land low. The restoration expeditions out to Dale were halted; even if the workers were hardy, the stone itself could not endure the frost for long. Inside the Mountain, it would remain warm and safe, the market place sheltered, lined with would could be salvaged from the halls of Erebor. Dwarven smiths know how to keep fires burning through the night and the market place became as snug as any warren. Aid came, from the Woodland Realm of all places. Caravans of elves braved the weather, bringing food and cloth. Lord Thranduil himself could often be seen at the head of the train, though many would speculate as to his intentions of his presence. Later accounts would undermine the initial indignation that came with the notion that he was here purely to watch the dwarf king breathe his last before swooping in like a carrion bird. Later accounts would tell of an Elf Lord speaking, admittedly strained but civilly, to the King and his Regent cousin, and visiting their new ally, Bard the Dragon Slayer, yet to be named Lord of Dale. There would also be a small anecdote of Thranduil being bewildered and upset upon learning a fine linen shirt and furs intended for Bard’s personal use had be reassigned for bandages and bedding. 

But this became the principle for the men and dwarves living morn to morn. Food was tight and noting could be afforded to be wasted. The seasoned cooks among the peoples would be consulted regularly, and hunting and foraging parties were dispatched in every break the weather offered. Rabbits, hares and fish came through the communal stores in twos and threes, subsidised by what the Elves could spare from their own stores. That which could not be jointed was stewed. Tricks were exchanged and techniques admired. The colony would get by, miraculously, it would. Come the spring the Iron Hills dwarves would be able to travel home to ease the pressure of hungry mouths and with fair weather would come trade. 

One could be callous in reading these pages of Erebor’s history to ask ‘Why?’ Why waste resources in the very heart of a most difficult winter on a celebration? What could they possibly have to celebrate?

That they were living. Even in the depth of winter, they were all alive. And, especially, the Line of Durin. Come mid-winter, Thorin would have healed enough to stand without a Hobbit crutch, though admittedly, the King would never be out of reach for one Bilbo Baggins. But he and his heirs would be up from their sick beds and Thorin walked, slowly and hesitantly to the throne at the centre of the marble and bowenite cavern on the shortest day of winter. When the new crown of iron and obsidian was set upon the king’s head, a silence would spread. A breathe that had been held since the days before the Battle of Five Armies was suddenly released and flurried through the whole kingdom. The applause would ripple out from the throne room and the noise would never really stop that night. 

The celebration would not be planned, it anyway. All that would be planned was for Thorin to make it to the throne and back to the rooms he was resting in without collapsing. But the cheering would lead to taking communal dinners. Fish mainly, Thorin’s Company seen choking down the meat gratefully and good naturedly. Dinner would linger on, for hours. Drink poured into every cup; wine, spirits, ales and even teas scrounged from every avenue.

Impossibly, within the camp, within the market square, an area of common land had established itself, clear of tents. Here a fire would build and benches would come to edge the square. All who weren’t not on the outer walls on watch duties throughout the night would be on and around that reclaimed square of blessed space. Men, Dwarves and a notable number of Elves all together, eating, drinking and sharing companionship. There would be no finery to be seen aside from the Line of Durin and Lord Thanduil himself. The Company of Thorin Oakenshield would sit in their oiled work leathers elbow to elbow with women who kept the colony clothed. Dwarven soldiers sharing cups with the masons of the Dale project. Children hovering within the range of both Elves and Dwarves, wide-eyed even after all this time. The King Under the Mountain would take a seat near the edge of the square, close enough to benefit from the fire. He would oversee the early hours of the evening quietly and stoically, flanked by his kin and the Hobbit. Apart but not removed. 

The evening would pass into the song and tales of all three races, when someone produces a fiddle. It had been a sorry thing; singed and waterlogged, some soul had snatched it from the shores of the Long Lake. Now, it would need a slight attention before it would start to sing. Softly at first. The young lad still unsure of his own fingers but soon the strains of a merry little reel would start coiling through the crowd. It wouldn’t take long for those around him to lend voices, boots and hands. After a few coltish tunes, an Iron Hill’s dwarf asked if he could, please young master, have a turn. You see’s lad, we’ve been aways from home a might while now, would like to hear some songs from the hills. There would be roaring cheers when the jigs started. The stomping of iron shod boots keeping time as a number of dwarves start throwing each other about in what can only be guessed were dances. Once blood was unintentionally drawn, an elven stores mistress would gentle lift the fiddle out of the mess of concussed bodies and started up a lilting air that soon would have every elven voice raised in song, as well as a few young bairns who did their utmost to parrot along. A few flutes and pipes would lend themselves, retrieved from unknown places. The tinkers as the Company would whittle pipes from fire wood as fast as they could, the little instruments being taken up as soon as the last of the sawdust was blown loose. Then empty plates and pots would be struck to offer up the voices of metal. The songs mingled and bled into one another in the smoky warm air. Bodies had made their way over the flagstones. There would be regiment dances know for generations, inexperienced couples navigating into spaces as they appeared, rings of children spinning chaotically regardless of the tempo of the music. Voices would be raised in triumph, in joy, in mourning, in passions of the blood. Bolder little ones darted into the crowds on the edge and returned to the fray, towing a favoured member of a different race. Mister Dwalin, Chief of his Majesty’s Guard, would be noted for waltzing with 4 children at once in his strong arms as others waited around him patiently for their turns. 

Somehow, the warm and humming fiddle found its’ way into the hands of a certain woman. Mistress Hilda-Bianca was a pillar of the Lake Town resistance during the Battle and now marshalled the citizens within the Mountain when Lord Bard was absent. The woman would take the instrument in hand and, after a moment’s tuning, would set the bow to strings. A precise description of the music that would play has been difficult to determine. Accounts simply state that the music was the sort to make the blood sing. Mistress Hilda-Bianca was now scholar of the instrument but it appears that for the rest of the night, no one seemed keen to relieve her of her charge. She is reported to have taken to the floor, fiddle on her arm and curtsied to the King Under the Mountain as best she could in her layered skirts. Tune after tune she played, all with words known by the Men of the Lake. Lady Tilda, supposedly saddened by the fact that the King’s wounds prevented him from partaking in the merriment, would make it her duty to sit at the foot of his chair and recite and translate lyrics for him, much to the amusement of his heirs. But by all accounts the King and the Hobbit greatly enjoyed her company and appreciated her efforts to educate them on the culture of their neighbours and her people. 

Her lesson would be disturbed with the change of song and the arrival of her sister. Lady Sigrid is noted to have fetched her sister with a breathless smile upon her face and hurried her to the ring of young girls that formed encircling the fire. As Hilda-Bianca beat a tempo against her leg, Sigrid grinned at her sister as the younger girl’s face split with realisation and excitement. The song would start out full of intent, strings and the hushed voices of the adults at the edge of square. The girls would start dancing around the flames, goaded by the fiddle, each young woman individual in her movements but united voices sang. In his memoirs, when they were recovered in later years, the crowned prince remembers that the words were not something he recognised, it was something old, Dalen if his judge was to be believed, occasionally slipping into common. And the girls danced, skirts, hands and hips in accord the trill of voices and strings. 

The Prince’s records note his experiences that night, but most notably, this song. This song alone gets a mention in his writing. He writes of the strings that bolster his blood, never leading but forever at his back. He writes of flames dancing. He marvels at how his could ever see beauty in fire again, but it seems he finds it that night. He gives no name but his writings centre on a single woman around the fire. He notes ‘she’, not ‘they’. ‘She’, he sees her ‘dancing across the fire from [him], as if they wish to join her in celebrating this night. As if they found themselves wishing to sing every song and dance every step with her, as [he] did’. He wondered why watching her ‘made [him] long for the sun once more, long to see her in the light of the sun’, as if ‘she could command the night to stay or go at her choosing’, how he could ‘hear her voice amongst the throng as if it was a seam through the earth’. 

It is difficult to know what exactly was occurring to the young prince that night, but it was no doubt a revelation. 

Other accounts state that the song ended with thunderous applause from all present and that a pink cheeked Lady Tilda hurried to Mistress Hilda-Bianca’s side, tugging on skirts and making an urgent request. The following songs would be melodic and slow. Calm enough for, say, a soul held together with strips of white linen and one’s own determination maybe not injure themselves if they chose to stand and sway with a Hobbit in their arms. Thant night would see a number of dancing groups, odder than even Mister Dwalin and his troop. 

The King Under The Mountain would dance with his future Consort. The young prince of Erebor would and the Captain of the Mirkwood Guard would be seen attempting to teach each other line dances of the race, with little success but much joy. 

And the Crown Prince would go across the fire to offer his hand for a dance to a young lady of Dale. Not for the last.

**Author's Note:**

> Forgive me, the tenses are all over the shop, I had a week to prep this but nope, I am so unorganised. The inspiration came from listening to Celtic Woman's 'Nil Se'n La' on repeat for hours. 
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CgBs3-BlqA&inCdex=23&list=PL6EA255E05BBBE1A


End file.
